TIIE ARMY WORM. 343 



the migratory habits of the army worms I have no doubt, 

 but up to this time no one has been able, with certainty, to 

 define those influences with sufiicient clearness to determine 

 exactly when to look for the invading foe. 



In conclusion, after days of reading and study and care- 

 fully weighing the opinions of those Avho, from education 

 and careful observation, have deduced theories that I am 

 neither able to overturn or substitute with better ones, I 

 am beset with mental queries like these : By what order of 

 climatic changes is the normal condition of the army worm 

 changed? Why does it increase so much more in its abnor- 

 mal condition than in its normal condition? AVhy, after 

 a year of such great increase, does it seem to disappear, or 

 so far disappear as not to be observed as the destroyer of 

 crops for a number of years? When it reaches the end of 

 its larva state, on its march in such immense numbers, what 

 becomes of it? If it becomes a chrj'salis and hybernates as 

 a chrysalis, why does it not begin the next season as a 

 moth in the same place, and, having deposited eggs for an 

 army greatly increased, what becomes of it? Perhaps not 

 one can be found on that field or even on the farm of which 

 that field is a part. Solomon has said that " there are times 

 and seasons for all things,"' but the times and seasons for the 

 appearance of the army worms have not yet been defined 

 with absolute certainty. Finally, I commend the very inter- 

 esting report of Prof. Riley upon the army worm, printed in 

 in the forthcoming reports of the United States Agricultural 

 Department. Prof. Riley, in his report, has carefully con- 

 sidered the opinions of others who have made investigations 

 upon this subject, and, with the reports of correspondents 

 from all parts of the country where the army worm has 

 appeared, and his own personal investigations, has con- 

 densed about all that is really yet known in regard to this — 

 at times — great destroyer. In the times when the Pharaohs 

 governed Egypt, the frogs and lice came up and covered the 

 whole land ; in the subsequent history of the children of 

 Israel, their prophets mention the locusts, the canker worm, 

 and the palmer worm that appeared at irregular periods, and 

 destroyed their crop. And, from the scattering of Israel 

 till this time, history records the unexpected and unex- 



